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ABSTRACT
This article assesses the evolving dimensions of sympathy education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It focuses on the League of Pity, the juvenile branch organisation of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). In its early years the League sought to emphasise Christian service and self-denial, and aimed to help poor victims of abuse become useful members of society. After the turn of the twentieth century, however, images and descriptions of suffering children featured in its propaganda less frequently; they were increasingly supplanted by reports of the various fundraising events attended by League members. The NSPCC sought to promote a sense of community between the League’s children and those whom it helped, but there was little real connection across the gulf that separated them. The League of Pity was an imagined community, despite its successes as an organised philanthropic offshoot of the NSPCC.
Acknowledgements
The author extends heartfelt gratitude to the editor and anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, which significantly enhanced the quality of this article. Sincere appreciation to the Institute of Advanced Studies at UCL for supporting the author’s visit and hosting a seminar on this article. Special thanks to Professors Mark Freeman and Georgina Brewis for their feedback as respondents, significantly contributing to the paper’s development.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Olsen, Juvenile Nation; Swain and Hillel, Child, Nation, Race and Empire; Flegel, Conceptualising Cruelty to Children.
2. See in particular Olsen, Juvenile Nation.
3. James, “What is an Emotion?”; Stanley, “Feeling and Emotion”; Shand, “Character and the Emotions.”
4. Power Cobbe, “The Education of the Emotions.”
5. Dixon, “Educating the Emotions.”
6. Li, “A Union of Christianity, Humanity, and Philanthropy”; Milton, “Taking the Pledge”; Flegel, “‘How Does Your Collar Suit Me?’”; Donald, Women Against Cruelty; Soares, “The Many Lessons”; Olsen, Juvenile Nation.
7. Olsen, Juvenile Nation.
8. NSPCC, “Our Literature and Children,” 46–8. All NSPCC reports and publications from 1895–1979 are held in the British Library.
9. NSPCC, “The League of Pity,” 7.
10. Housden, The Prevention of Cruelty; Allen, This is Your Child; Behlmer, Child Abuse and Moral Reform; Sherrington, “The NSPCC in Transition.”
11. Ferguson, Child Protection Practice; Hendrick, Child Welfare: Historical Dimensions; Hendrick, Child Welfare: England 1872–1989; Cunningham, Children and Childhood; Swain, “An Imperial Mission?”; Flegel, “Facts and Their Meaning”; Flegel, “‘Masquerading Work.’”
12. Cunningham, Children and Childhood, 1.
13. Flegel, Conceptualising Cruelty to Children, 15.
14. “Introductory Article,” 1.
15. “Notes” (1891), 119.
16. Behlmer, Child Abuse and Moral Reform, 60.
17. Manning and Waugh, Child of English Savage, 678; Flegel, Conceptualising Cruelty to Children, 59–60.
18. Behlmer, Child Abuse and Moral Reform, 63.
19. Flegel, Conceptualising Cruelty to Children, 6, 9.
20. Behlmer, Child Abuse and Moral Reform, 188.
21. “The League of Pity,” 8.
22. “Children’s League of Pity,” 3.
23. NSPCC, “The League of Pity,” 2–3.
24. Ibid., 12.
25. Soto-Rubio, “In Defense of Sympathy,” 1428–9.
26. Richardson, After Darwin, 120.
27. Mathias, “Response.”
28. Richardson, After Darwin, 120.
29. Soto-Rubio, “In Defense of Sympathy,” 1429.
30. Boddice, The Science of Sympathy, 43.
31. Himmelfarb, Poverty and Compassion, 3.
32. Soto-Rubio, “In Defense of Sympathy,” 1430.
33. Dixon, The Invention of Altruism, 137.
34. Boddice, Science of Sympathy, 46.
35. Ibid., 47.
36. Olsen, Juvenile Nation, 12.
37. Roberts, “Character in the Mind,” 177. On the “crisis” of imperialism, see Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform.
38. Gerdes, “Empathy, Sympathy, and Pity,” 231.
39. Edgar et al., Making Humanitarian Crises, 6.
40. Lanzoni, “Sympathy in Mind,” 285.
41. Haskell, “Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility,” 339–61.
42. Beaven and Griffiths, “Creating the Exemplary Citizen.”
43. “The Progress of the Society,” 49.
44. The Children’s League of Pity Paper 1, no. 1 (1893): 8.
45. “The Children’s League of Pity: Wanted, 10,000 Children,” 130.
46. “Notices,” 135.
47. “The Children’s League of Pity: An Address by Miss Bolton,” 151–2.
48. “Our Title Picture,” 17–8.
49. “Notices,” 135.
50. “The Children’s League of Pity: An Address by Miss Bolton.”
51. “Their Happy Land,” 18–19.
52. “A Real Tit-bit about Our Girls,” 12–13.
53. “Some of Our Boys,” 50.
54. “An Accuser of Our League of Pity,” 41; Twining, Recollections of Life and Work, 144–5.
55. “Well-Doers,” 25–6.
56. “Notes” (1896), 10.
57. Ibid., 1.
58. Olsen, Juvenile Nation, 148.
59. Ibid., 137–8.
60. Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas, 44–8; Richardson, After Darwin, 120.
61. Parr, “Cherish Pity, Lest You Drive An Angel From Your Door,” 221. Capitals in original.
62. Ibid.
63. “League of Pity – Hastings Branch,” 6.
64. Waugh, “The 25th Of December,” 61.
65. Parr, “Our Monthly Talk,” 185–6.
66. Parr, “Motto” (June-July 1906), 77.
67. Ibid., 26.
68. “New Year Changes,” 1.
69. “A Plea for the League of Pity,” 31.
70. Hendrick, “Optimism and Hope versus Anxiety and Narcissism.”
71. Olsen, Juvenile Nation, 19.
72. Springhall, “Baden-Powell and the Scout Movement Before 1920,” 942; Springhall, Youth, Empire and Society, 17.
73. “Notes” (1900), 12.
74. “Motto,” 69.
75. “The New Century. 1901,” 105.
76. “The League of Pity,” 138.
77. NSPCC, “The League of Pity,” 13.
78. Parr, “Motto” (April-May 1908), 53.
79. Olsen, Juvenile Nation, 145.
80. “A Look Behind and Before. 1884 to 1900,” 1; Olsen, Juvenile Nation, 145.
81. Cobbe, “Education of the Emotions.”
82. “A Picture Lesson for the Community.”
83. Parr, “Motto” (1910), 66.
84. Olsen, Juvenile Nation, 54.
85. Edgar et al., Making Humanitarian Crises, 173.
86. “The Children’s League of Pity: An Address by Miss Bolton.”
87. Ibid.
88. “Fete at Walton on Thames,” 82.
89. Parr, “Motto” (1907), 125.
90. Ibid., 241.
91. Ibid., 1.
92. For an example of correspondence, see Children’s League of Pity Paper 13, no. 12 (1909): 277; for the “Coronation Appeal”, see Children’s League of Pity Paper 14, no. 8 (1911): 217.
93. “The Cavendish Home,” 3.
94. “Children’s League of Pity,” 3.
95. Behlmer, Child Abuse and Moral Reform, 189.
96. Monica Flegel also reveals the limits of ostensibly classless constructions of childhood in a classed society in her paper “‘Masquerading Work.’”
97. “A Happy New Year,” 3.
98. Quoted in Flegel, “Masquerading Work,” 81.
99. Lanzoni, “Sympathy in Mind.”
100. Koven, “Dr. Barnardo’s ‘Artistic Fictions’.”
101. Boddice, “The Affective Turn,” 159.